Happy Enough
by TotallyLosingIt
Summary: He only messes with him because he doesn't even know he's being messed with. For the March 3rd Anti-Bullying Day.


**A/N: Okay, this was supposed to be a bullying one-shot for the March 3****rd**** Anti Bullying Day, but I got carried away. Now it has to do with divorce, friendship-ish, character study, and bullying. Close enough.**

**I know that you guys wanted to see the guys going through their bullying thing in their POV, but I decided to be a rebel. Also, this is bullied!Carlos (because this is how I think he would react if he were bullied). **

**Disclaimer: I own Kevin, Jake, and Coach Anderson. Yeah. That's about it.**

They were fighting again. Kevin woke up sharply after hearing the crash and the trickle of glass that very clearly came from the kitchen. The noise was immediately followed by furious screaming, stomping, and the sound of a door slamming so hard it rattled Kevin's hockey trophies.

Kevin sat up slowly. His eyes stung, but he blinked past them and stared hard at the wall, listening for any other noise. After a few seconds, he heard it: his mother, sobbing. Kevin ground his teeth. He hated it when his father made his mother cry. It'd been happening a lot more lately. Even worse—his father was almost never home, out either working or drinking. And when he was home, he fought with his wife. And then he left again.

Frustration bubbled to the surface and Kevin slammed his fist into his pillowcase. His mother always taught him that violence wasn't the answer, but Kevin was starting to lose hope that the question burning into his mind would ever have an answer. As he hit the pillow again and again, it echoed tauntingly, mocking his tears as they blurred his eyes.

_Do they even love each other anymore?_

…

"Yo, Kevin!"

Kevin turned to see his best friend, Jake, jogging up to him. He turned and started to walk as he caught up with him. "Hey, Jake."

Jake frowned at him. "What's up with you, man? You've been closed off lately."

"Just some home stuff," Kevin said, shrugging. "It's no big deal."

"Alright." Jake was apparently satisfied by Kevin's brush-off, which somehow made Kevin's mood sour.

They headed to hockey practice every day after school, the one time of day it seemed like Kevin's life was going right. He felt perfectly at ease on the ice, perfectly in control. As he entered the locker room with Jake, Kevin's tension melted away.

"Hey guys!" came an obnoxiously loud, familiar voice over to his right. "Look at this!"

Kevin turned in time to see Carlos Garcia slap his helmet twice and then leap off of the shower stall into the lost and found bin. Kevin's lip curled automatically. Carlos was the loudest, most annoying, most attention-hungry person he'd ever met. He was unbelievably stupid, lugged around a hockey helmet all day, and seemed like his sole purpose in life was to kill himself in crazy, undesirable ways.

"Did you crack your head open?" he asked snidely when Carlos' black helmet popped out of the bin.

"Don't think so," Carlos said brightly, climbing out. "But it really stinks in there."

Kevin caught Jake's gaze and rolled his eyes. Carlos would believe anything.

The short Latino boy trotted over to his other friends—Kendall Knight, Logan Mitchell, and James Diamond, all polar opposites of him. Kevin didn't get why they even hung out with him. He was the most irritating thing you could think of, with the brain of a seven-year-old and a daily injection of hyper energy. He could barely stand to be on the same team as the guy.

Whatever. The shrimp wasn't worth his time.

Kevin finished tying his skates and glided out onto the ice for hockey practice. The winter cold made his breath fog up, just the way he liked it. Practice was, as usual, brutal as the coach worked them hard with the occasional pep talk from Kendall, the team captain. After every talk Carlos would pat his helmet twice, making that infuriating sound. Kevin tried to ignore it.

Despite how at ease he felt when playing hockey, Kevin could feel his mind drifting back towards his parents' fight. When he'd confronted his mother about it, she'd denied everything and told him to get ready for school. Kevin wished they wouldn't treat him like he didn't know everything. It was hard to ignore the screaming, the banging of pots and pans and glass, and her crying in the middle of the night.

The puck slid towards Kevin and he slapped at it harder than necessary, anger building up. As he turned to go after it, Carlos slammed into him, sending them both crashing into the boards.

"Watch it!" Kevin screamed, flying off the handle for a second.

"Sorry," Carlos panted. "Couldn't stop myself in time."

"Oh, sure," Kevin snapped. "Go with that."

Carlos blinked, obviously sensing the anger in Kevin's voice but not knowing what he did wrong. He reached out to touch Kevin's shoulder with his glove. "Kevin, are you okay?"

He shoved away from him. "Do I look okay?"

His yelling was drawing a crowd as his teammates skated towards him.

"Dude, what's wrong with you?" Jake asked, concerned.

"Good question," Kevin snapped. "Here's a better one: what's wrong with _him?"_

All eyes turned to Carlos, following Kevin's point. Carlos looked like a deer trapped in headlights. "What did I do?"

"What did you do?" Kevin sneered. "All you want is attention. You do crazy, stupid things just to get people to look at you. And you're so _stupid._ People mess with you and you don't even know you're being messed with!You'd think that _smart _people like Kendall, Logan, and James would know not to hang out with you because you make them look bad. What, do they keep you around for laughs?"

"Kevin," Kendall said sharply, pushing himself between the two. "That's _enough."_

"Whatever," Kevin said, disgusted. He couldn't bring himself to look at Carlos' stricken face. Throwing his stick down on the ice, he skated past the gaping people and onto the pavement. Ripping off his skates, he found Coach Anderson frowning disapprovingly at him.

"Suspension," was all he said. "Two weeks."

"Of course," Kevin snapped. It would figure that the coach would suddenly feel the need to take away his one grounding point just when everything was falling apart. He angrily shoved his skates into his bag and took off towards his house.

He went right past it.

Kevin ran until he couldn't run anymore. His lungs burned, his eyes blurred, and frustrated screams ripped from his lungs to echo at the sky. And when he couldn't scream anymore, he walked numbly in straight line. He didn't even realize it when he made it all the way to the high school.

Exhausted from the screaming, the crying, and the pent up anger, Kevin leaned against the brick wall outside of the gym and sank to a sitting position. When had it all gone so wrong? Was it three months ago, when his father found a picture of a man he'd never seen before on his wife's cell phone? Was it two months ago, when he started drinking? One month ago, when Kevin would wake in the early morning to screaming, fighting, and things being thrown across the room?

How did his life get so messed up?

Kevin didn't know how long he'd sat in that one spot, but the crunch of footsteps suddenly drew his attention. His head shot up and he hastened to scrape the tear stains off of his face, standing at the same time.

The person rounded the corner, and the first thing Kevin noticed was the shiny black hockey helmet hanging from Carlos' nimble fingers. He looked up at Carlos' face. It took him a second to recognize the glistening tracks on Carlos' round cheeks.

Kevin stared. Carlos was crying. He _never _cried. Every hit on the ice he took with a smile. Every mean thing that was said to him either flew over his head or shrugged off like it didn't bother him. He was practically the happiest person on the planet.

Carlos looked up and finally seemed to notice he wasn't alone. His doe-like eyes widened, recognizing Kevin, and then he frantically wiped his eyes and nose, trying to hide the fact that he'd been crying like a little girl.

_Like me a second ago, _Kevin admitted to himself.

"What do you want?" he asked, although it came out sharper than he meant.

"I just…" Carlos looked down and scrubbed the toe of his boot into the snow. Apparently coming to an epiphany, he raised his head, fire in his eyes. And then it faded. "Kevin, are you… crying?"

"What?" Kevin panicked. No way this shrimp could see him like this. He turned around and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. "Duh, Garcia. Get some glasses if you can't see right."

"You _are _crying," Carlos said, a frown in his voice. The guy must've had an empathy radar or something. Kevin usually could hide his emotions better than this.

The Latino boy came around to look him in the face. "What's wrong?" he asked.

And with those two words, everything exploded again. "What's _wrong?" _Kevin shouted. "What's _wrong _is that my dad's out every night to go get drunk and then come back just so he can fight with Mom! What's _wrong _is that my mom cries every night and pretends like I don't notice! _What's wrong _is that nobody even seems to know I exist anymore, and I just got suspended from the one thing that keeps me from losing my mind! _Everything's wrong!"_

He gulped down air, and then ground his teeth together as his vision blurred again. He was _not _going to cry in front of Carlos.

Then the Latino boy did something that surprised him. Kevin frowned as he felt warm arms wrap around him, Carlos hugging him and rubbing circles on his back. Carlos was a hugger—he hugged his friends all the time—but it was just weird for him to be hugging Kevin. It was so weird, in fact, that Kevin's almost-tears eased as he stood, baffled by the gesture.

"Um, Carlos?" he said.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you hugging me?"

Carlos withdrew his arms and tucked them behind his back shyly. "I just… Mom says that hugs make everything better. I'm sorry about your family. I'm sure everything will turn out okay."

Kevin shook his head. "What are you, stupid or something?"

The Latino boy winced, and Kevin felt immediately bad for saying something like that again. "I don't think so," Carlos said quietly. "But I know how it feels to be scared that you're going to lose your family." He gave him a smile. "But it always gets better. So don't worry."

That had to be the most naïve things Kevin had ever heard. But he could see the belief shining in Carlos' eyes. The Latino boy started to turn away, but Kevin caught his arm.

"I'm sorry," he said, hating to apologize but knowing that he needed it. "For the things I said back at the rink."

Carlos shrugged one shoulder. "S'okay. I know you were frustrated and angry and didn't know how to get it out. Mom says that sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." His face twisted. "I'm pretty sure that's the one thing she's wrong about, though."

Kevin shook his head again. "You're just forgiving me? Like that?"

"Sure." Carlos gave him a weird look. "Why wouldn't I?"

"No reason," Kevin said. A smile worked his way onto his face. "Hey, Carlos—thanks."

"I'll talk to Coach Anderson about your suspension," Carlos said sincerely. "Have a good day, Kevin."

Was it girly that Kevin's spirits felt uplifted? Kevin grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder, watching as Carlos disappeared around the corner, his helmet back on his head.

He couldn't believe he ever thought the guy was annoying. It was understandable now why he was best friends with Kendall, Logan, and James. Carlos kept them all grounded, happy in the times he should've been sad, the innocence when everything felt like it was spiraling out of control. Carlos Garcia was just plain happy, no matter what life threw at him.

Kevin found himself just a little bit happier, too.


End file.
